Rule: Use one of the subject pronouns when it is the subject of the sentence.

Example: I hit the ball.
Who hit the ball? I did. So “I” is the subject.

Usually, these subject pronouns sound right to most of us.

Example: He and I will meet at the gym.
Who will meet at the gym? He will meet at the gym. I will meet at the gym. So “he” and “I” are both the subjects.

Sometimes we want to say, “Him and me will . . .” or “Him and I will . . . .” You can remember the correct pronouns by saying each pronoun alone in the sentence. It probably won’t sound right to you to say, “Him will . . .” or “Me will . . . .”

Now, this next rule is difficult because it doesn’t sound right to most of us.

Because we don’t speak this way, we can’t use our ear to help us with this rule. This is a good time to discuss the difference between spoken language and written language, particularly when it comes to tests and formal papers. We speak informally but must write more formally. Frankly, if I knock on someone’s door and am asked, “Who is it?” I am not going to say, “It is I” for fear that the person on the other side of the door will think I’m weird and never open up. However, if I am taking an exam or writing a report, I will try to spot these state-of-being verbs and check my pronoun usage.

The next rule does sound right to most of us.

Rule: Use one of the object pronouns when the pronoun is not a subject and it doesn’t follow a state-of-being verb.

Example: Nancy gave the gift to her.
Example: Please remind him or me.

(Remember, leave out one of the pronouns and you will be able to hear the correct answer.) Many of us have been brainwashed to believe that “I” is somehow more correct than “me.” Not so. “I” and “me” follow the same rules as all other pronouns. Would you say, “Please give it to I”? Of course not.

Example: Between you and me, I think Sandy cheated.

Again, me is not the subject nor does it follow one of those state-of-being verbs. So we must use the object case. (For those of you with some grammar background, you and me in that sentence are both objects of the preposition between.)

Pop Quiz
Select the correct sentence.

1A. Arlene asked he and I to complete the job.
1B. Arlene asked he and me to complete the job.
1C. Arlene asked him and I to complete the job.
1D. Arlene asked him and me to complete the job.

2A. He and I completed the job for Arlene.
2B. He and me completed the job for Arlene.
2C. Him and I completed the job for Arlene.
2D. Him and me completed the job for Arlene.

162 Responses to “I vs. Me”

I am sure Mr. Neal would be flattered by your association between he and I.
Not to be overly picky but that’s two MAJOR errors in the space of four words James.
Personal pronouns like he and I are subjects of verbs and so must be followed by a verb.
Him and me on the other hand are the objects of verbs and should be used instead here as they clearly are objects of association.

He and I are going to town but it was a toss between him and me who would drive.

I am amazed at how many people mix personal pronouns like this, but must add that it has become a lot worse in the last 5 years thanks in no small measure to exceedingly badly written newspaper and website articles. Still, this is high school stuff and people our age should NOT be making these errors. We are better educated than that.

Jim, you’re correct that the sentence should read:
I am sure Mr. Neal would be flattered by your association between him and me.
“Between” is a preposition so pronouns following it are objects of the preposition. “He” and “I” are subject pronouns while “him” and “me” are object pronouns.
Don’t be scared of using “me” in a sentence!

I’m so glad to see the comment that the degradation of grammar is at least partly due to poorly written newspapers artciles and websites. I’m wondering how long to keep “fighting” this — especially the common failure to use the predicate nominative (“it was she”). I have a college age daughter whose English prof says that sometimes incorrect grammar becomes “correct” through usage. “The language changes, Mom,” I am told. But NOT the written word, I say!

Whether language changes through laziness or conscious choice is irrelevant. I’m sure we all stopped speaking like Shakespeare because it was just too much effort “laziness” improved the language in that sense. Rare are the times when language is consciously altered.

It is interesting to hear the reasons for not speaking grammatically correct that people write in to different sites I’ve visited. I personally think it is because for decades now, it has not been taught fully in schools and thus not handed down through the generations. Poor grammar is rampant in the media and you even see it in the books with which we teach our children to read. When teachers and parents alike are not speaking proper language, it can be a losing battle. People get so used to speaking slang that it becomes the new language. You mentioned that we should keep it alive in formal language, but why not in informal speech as well? Or is it too late for that? I think that if we teach the proper forms, that perhaps we can arrest the dwindling spiral of proper speech to some degree. “At least the “Me and Joe are going…” and the “I can’t see very good” type slang. It may be too late for the It is I. It is he etc. as it’s been lost for several generations now, at least in every day language(from my observations).

Do you recall all adults correcting grammar mistakes when growing up? It certainly was that way for me. At the time I did not appreciate it but now I am grateful. In the public schools in the state I live in, dissecting sentences is not taught. The whole language phenomenon, as a teaching method, is a total misstep. No phonics, no spelling tests, the idea being as long as the student comprehends what he/she is reading or writing learning is accomplished. That is half the goal and our college’s and universities do not know what to do with these kid’s. Just my opinion. Feel free to correct my mistakes!

Thank you for your comments. Good grammar and writing are not easy to master. Since you gave us permission to correct your mistakes, following is your paragraph with the errors corrected:

Do you recall all adults correcting grammar mistakes when growing up? It certainly was that way for me. At the time I did not appreciate it, but now I am grateful. In the public schools in the state I live in, dissecting sentences is not taught. The whole language phenomenon, as a teaching method, is a total misstep. It has no phonics, no spelling tests; the idea being as long as the student comprehends what he or she is reading or writing, learning is accomplished. That is half the goal, and our colleges and universities do not know what to do with these kids. That is just my opinion. Feel free to correct my mistakes!

Is there a rule for determining the order of objects, ie Jim sent the notice to me and Bob, or Jim sent the notice to Bob and me. I believe there is a rule on subects that person must be given preference, ie Bob and I versus I and Bob.

The rule for choosing the case of your pronoun with “as well as” is actually simple. Just mentally complete the sentence: You know that as well as I know that OR You know that as well as I do.
Therefore, you would say or write, “You know that as well as I.”

Some people who post pictures online write “John Doe and I” as the caption as if to say, “John Doe and I are in this picture,” or “This is John Doe and I.” I would prefer to write “John Doe and me” as if to say, “This is a picture of John Doe and me”? Would it be more correct to use the former with the idea that a person looking at the picture would be more likely to ask, “Who is this?” rather than, “Who is this a picture of?”

In reference to the time frame in the previous question, why is there a comma between the dates ~ “Between July 1, 2010, and August 30, 2010, …” One doesn’t place a comma in the phrase “between you and me.” Are these phrases not similar?

In reference to the time frame in the previous question, why is there a comma between the dates “Between July 1, 2010, and August 30, 2010, …” ? One doesn’t place a comma in the phrase “between you and me.” Are these phrases not similar?

Is it “there is no point in he and I to talk” or “there is no point in him and me to talk”? Also, is it “there is no point in me reviewing the documents” or “there is no point in my reviewing the documents”?

Use object pronouns rather than subject pronouns. “There is no point in him and me talking.” (Just as you would say “There is no point in us talking” rather than “There is no point in we talking.”)
In the second example, you would use “me” rather than “my,” since “my” is a possessive pronoun.

This rule does exist in another authoritative source. According to The Chicago Manual of Style, Section 6.33, Commas with coordinate adjectives, “As a general rule, when a noun is preceded by two or more adjectives that could, without affecting the meaning, be joined by and, the adjectives are normally separated by commas. Such adjectives, which are called coordinate adjectives, can also usually be reversed in order and still make sense.” In your example, “Felix was a lonely, young boy” makes the same sense as “Felix was a young, lonely boy.” Regarding the pause in the sentence, not every comma implies a long pause. A slight pause between the two adjectives sounds natural, in my opinion.

Interesting. I was taught, “there is no point in our talking” (actually, “speaking”) rather than “in us talking”. However, I was raised by a British English speaker. So, is this way incorrect or simply a difference in the two versions of English? Do you know?

With reference to the query from Jen, 25th March 2011, whether the phrase “there is no point in our speaking” is correct, or whether it should read “there is no point in us speaking”, please permit me to point out that both constructions are correct. In the former, speaking following ‘our’ is a gerund, whereas in the latter speaking after ‘us’ is the present participle.

In the sentence “She was behaving like him,” should the last pronoun, him, be changed to the subjective case (he), or remain in the objective case?

You could argue that ‘like’ is functioning as a preposition in this sentence, and so, because the pronoun is the object of that preposition, it should be in the objective case: he. However, you could also argue the opposite by reasoning that the more verbose version of the sentence would read: “Ann was behaving like he behaves,” in which case, the subjective case would be more suitable.

According to Rule 5 in the “Problems with Prepositions” section of Grammarbook.com, “The word like may be used as a preposition and in informal writing, as a conjunction. In formal writing, use as, as if, or as though rather than like as the conjunction.”

Depending on whether the writing was informal or formal, you could either write “She was behaving like him,” or “Ann was behaving as he behaves.” The other sentence, “Ann was behaving like he behaves” would only be acceptable in informal writing.

Alan, this one is extremely tricky! The sentence should be, “It was I whom you saw.” We use the subject pronoun I because it follows the state-of-being verb was (as discussed in an earlier blog, “Pronoun Tips”). However, use the objective form whom, because it answers the question, “You saw whom?” Also, there is nothing wrong with the simpler, “It was I you saw.”

Our Rule 2 of Pronouns says, “Subject pronouns are also used if they rename the subject. They follow to be verbs such as is, are, was, were, am, and will be.” Therefore, it is grammatically correct to write “It wasn’t I.” In informal English, most people tend to follow to be verbs with object pronouns. Many English scholars tolerate this distinction between formal and casual English.

I’m trying to help a friend who has written a book. It’s very poorly written, with multiple grammar and punctuation errors. The thing driving me nuts is her habit of changing pronouns within a paragraph — sometimes in the same sentence! (Ex: “When the Holy Spirit tells US to move, YOU move.”) What is the rule for this? She flings around, “we”, “you”, “I”, “me”, “us”, etc. until I have no idea what she’s saying.

The Chicago Manual of Style, rule 5.40 says, “A personal pronoun agrees with the noun for which it stands in both gender and number {John writes, and he will soon write well} {Sheila was there, but she couldn’t hear what was said}.”

Pronoun consistency in a sentence is important to the reader’s comprehension of the written piece. Quite often the word “you” gets overused and causes the kind of reader distraction you describe. From your description, unless your friend is willing to take classes and is open to regular feedback from a teacher on grammar, punctuation, and effective writing, he or she will need a good editor and proofreader.

When you are placing a title under a photo, your most likely meaning is “This is a picture of Meli and me at the restaurant.” Therefore, your shorthand way of writing it would be “Meli and me at the restaurant.” You are using the objective case “me” because it is the object of the preposition “of.” In the unlikely event that you intend your caption to mean “Meli and I are at the restaurant,” then you would use the subjective case “Meli and I at the restaurant.” In this case, you might as well add the word “are” to your caption.

The fact that “Periods and commas always go inside quotation marks” has simply become a rule that is easy for people to follow and does not always follow logic. With other punctuation marks, question marks for instance, their placement does follow logic. This is the English language–not always logical!

While the sentence is grammatically correct, it sounds awkward because the language used is rather vague. Rule 1 in our “Effective Writing” section of GrammarBook.com says, “Use concrete rather than vague language.” We recommend “I wish my loved ones and I could all be together in one place.”

We indirectly address this situation in Rule 8 of Apostrophes, “Use the apostrophe and s after the second name only if two people possess the same item.” However, The Chicago Manual of Style addresses this issue directly by stating, “Closely linked nouns are considered a single unit in forming the possessive when the thing being “possessed” is the same for both; only the second element takes the possessive form.” Therefore, the correct phrasing would be “Her and my car.”

Another grammar trend I’ve noticed is the use of “myself” in place of I or me. It hurts my ears to hear the language butchered like this. For instance, I heard on the radio; “For more information, call myself, Joe Smith at…”. Or you hear a lot of people say “John and myself did this or that”. The proper word to use in those examples is clear when you apply the usage rules above. When is myself the proper word choice?

You are correct. Rule 7 in the “Pronouns” section of our website says, “Reflexive pronouns - myself, himself, herself, itself, themselves, ourselves, yourself, yourselves- should be used only when they refer back to another word in the sentence.
Correct:
I worked myself to the bone.
Incorrect:
My brother and myself did it.
The word myself does not refer back to another word.
Correct:
My brother and I did it.
Incorrect:
Please give it to John or myself.
Correct:
Please give it to John or me.

We agree that saying, “Are Jones Miles and Cheska Blame an official couple?” does sound awkward. We prefer “Are Jones Miles and Cheska Blame in a relationship?’ or “Is Jones Miles in a relationship with Cheska Blame?”

Are you sure your English book is not using this sentence as an incorrect example? If not, it seems that you found an error in your English book. Him and me are not subject pronouns and you are correct that the sentence should read “He and I have been seeing more of each other.”

Mentally complete the sentence. “The man boasted to his friends that he was a better singer than they were.” Therefore, your sentence should be:
The man boasted to his friends that he was a better singer than they.

Mentally completing the sentence will sometimes mean inserting words and sometimes adding words depending on the sentence. Your example, “This helps you as much as I/me,” would be understood by almost everyone to mean “This helps you as much as it helps I/me.” By inserting the words it helps, you’ve made it easier to select the correct pronoun me. The sentence “This helps you as much as I” may be a grammatically correct shortening of “This helps you as much as I help you,” but it is an extremely awkward sentence and is likely to lead to confusion.

In our Rule 5 of Pronouns, we give examples of completing sentences by adding words, such as Tranh is as smart as she/her. If we mentally complete the sentence, we would say, “Tranh is as smart as she is.” Therefore, she is the correct answer.

There is no specific grammar rule covering repetition of words in a paragraph. How does it sound to your own ear when you read it silently and out loud? If it doesn’t sound right, rewrite. There are many helpful websites with tips for writers. You might search on “how to avoid excessive repetition of names and pronouns” or something of that sort.

Yes, when I or me is paired with another name, it can be helpful to mentally drop the other name and then you can hear which one is correct. We also mention this “trick” in the Grammar Blogs “I vs. Me” and “I vs. Me (Review).”

My husband was at a yard sale recently and found a children’s book entitled “My brother and I” He was calling the author out for improper grammar. I thought the title was fine. What is your call on this title? It really is not a sentence. Thanks, Marge

You are correct that the title is not a sentence. “My Brother and I” could refer to a sentence such as “My brother and I are best friends,” or it could refer to “This is a book about my brother me,” in which case the title is not grammatically correct.

I generally follow these rules very closely. One issue that came up in a bet today was the correct response to “Who did that?” Is the correct response “Me” or “I”? Similarly, the proper ending to the sentence “You are better than me/I” is being debated. Your assistance in settling this would be greatly appreciated!

The complete answer to “Who did that?” is “I did that.” Therefore, use the subjective I. If you mentally complete your second example sentence, you could write “You are better than I am.” Therefore, the word I is correct.

Hi,
I was wondering if you could help me with a pronoun question. When asked a question why do we always reply with object pronouns rather than subject pronouns. For example
“Who is this in the photo” The one word reply would be “me” which makes sense as you are the subject of the sentence as in “It(photo/subject) is me(object). However, when asked the question “who wants a piece of cake?” we also respond with “me”. This does not seem to make sense as surely I would be the subject of this answer were it converted into a full sentence as in “I want a piece of cake”. Thanks for your time.

Informal spoken responses often wrongly use object pronouns instead of subject pronouns. In your first example sentence, saying “Me” as a response could be correct as the shortened form of the sentence “That is a photo of me.” Answering with “Me” as a response to “Who wants a piece of cake?” is grammatically incorrect.

We do have a “Pronouns” quiz on the website consisting of eleven questions. The quiz covers many different pronouns, not just I and me. We also have eight more quizzes (eighty more questions) on pronouns on the website for quiz subscribers.

I am baffled by the confusion over subjective and objective personal pronouns. On the one hand people follow the grammatical rules almost perfectly as long as only one person is referenced in the phrase. And yet the moment a second pronoun is added it seems that all the rules are summarily tossed out the window. What’s with the inconsistency? I can appreciate that languages change and evolve and that the reasons can be complex. And yet it would seem that in most cases a change would serve to simplify or abbreviate sentence structure. But this trend appears to do neither. It actually complicates things because while there are very clear rules that are followed when only one personal pronoun is use, the introduction of a second pronoun in the phrase seemingly renders the grammatical guideline irrelevant and usage becomes random. How complicated is that? My personal hunch is that this trend stems from laziness and a decreasing ability among large segments of the population to think and speak with clarity and accuracy. But if I ever say such a thing I get nailed with all sorts of criticism. People talk about my inability to accept the fluidity of language and suggest that I’m some sort of Luddite dinosaur from a previous age… Ho hum.

I need someone’s help. I’m an English teacher but not a native one. I have always been taught that we should say ‘me and my family’ or ‘my family and I’. But recently I heard someone saying ‘I and my family’. It sounded really strange and I’m wondering if it’s correct as I would never use such structure. Could you explain me if it’s proper to use such phrase and if there is any difference in usage of those two?

I don’t think this question belongs in this section, but I couldn’t figure out where to ask. I am sure “Mike’s and my” in the following sentence is correct. However, it sounds strange to me. I cannot think of a better construction. I cannot write “our” because we have not been mentioned in a prior sentence. However, the birthday was mentioned previously. Are “Mike’s and my” and “our” just adjectives? I am probably making this way too complicated. Could you please help me? Thank you.

I can never forget your birthday because today was also Mike’s and my anniversary.

or

Today was also Mike’s and my anniversary, so I can ever forget your birthday.

Our Rule 7 of Pronouns says, “To decide whether to use the subject or object pronoun after the words than or as, mentally complete the sentence.” Your completed sentence would read “No one knows the Smiths better than my wife and I know them.” Therefore, the pronoun I is correct.

The rule that you should “only refer to yourself as me when you are the only person” is incorrect. For example, in the sentence “I am planning on going to a movie tomorrow,” there is no other person mentioned, and the word I is used because I refers to a subject pronoun. In your other sentence, “This is a photo of Jay and me,” the object pronoun me is used because it’s the object of the preposition of.

The answer depends on how the phrase is used in a sentence. Whether you use “and” or “or” does not matter. See our blog “Reflexive Pronouns” for an explanation of the proper use of pronouns such as “myself.”

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